Temporal Circumstances Form and History in the Canterbury Tales [Hardcover]

Temporal Circumstances provides powerful and detailed interpretations of the most important and challenging of the Canterbury Tales. Well-informed and clearly written, this book will interest both those familiar with Chaucer's masterpiece and readers new to it.Preface Introduction: Historicism and Postmodernity Putting the Wife in Her Place: The Place of Philology Putting the Wife in Her Place: The Place of History Freedom and Necessity: The Example of the Clerk's Tale Chaucer's Pardoner on the Couch: Clio and Psyche in Medieval Literary Studies 'What Man Artow': Authorial Self-Definition in the Tale of Sir Thopas and the Tale of Melibee 'Witnesses of Our Redemption: Jewish Martyrdom and Christian Sacrifice in the Prioress's Tale Perpetual Motion: Alchemy and the Technology of the SelfLEE PATTERSON, F. W. Hilles Professor of English at Yale University, USA, is the author of Negotiating the Past: The Historical Understanding of Medieval Literature and Chaucer and the Subject of History, awarded the Christian Gauss prize by Phi Beta Kappa. A Fellow of the Medieval Academy, he is the author of numerous essays on medieval literature.